Eyes Of The Forest

Indeela waddled after the others chasing The Doctor with an excited giggle, their arms flailing energetically as they started surveying the area. Despite their carefree and slightly inappropriate behaviour, Indeela had begun doing what they did best. Memorising. Not a single glance was wasted as Indeela began taking in and recording to memory any and every detail of the path they were taking. Potential landmarks, tree patterns and species', signs of wildlife... Indeela found very little of the later. They also found very little in the way of evidence that any children had been through here recently, though that was no surprise. Forests were large, open and sprawling environments, unless they were incredibly lucky they were going to be here for some time...

"It's terribly cold out here, isn't it?"

Indeela shivered and put their arms around themselves as they continued to glance around, their movements becoming notably less enthusiastic and more subdued. There was something about the atmosphere of this forest... Indeela had always wondered why so many human folklore stories had evil forces such as witches and monsters living in their woods. The plantlife of Alpha Centauri had always been a source of beauty and joy. This experience was beginning to help them understand.

A short moment later The Doctor finished talking about sticking together. Indeela had been about to make a raising speech, something to try and lighten the mood. Such an opportunity was cruelly stolen from them by the appearance of a bright red light that swooped past the assembled group. Barely suppressing their innate tendency to shriek, Indeela set about recreating the moment in their head, closing their eye in concentration.

They had been facing that way... Then the light came from... and headed past... Yes. Yes, it had gone that way.

Indeela turned and gazed in the direction of a collection of bushes and dying trees.

"It... It went that way, and it came from..."

Immediately springing into action, Indeela began moving between the bush they had seen the light dash through and a short distance in front of The Doctor, rummaging through the trees and searching in the foliage. As they were searching for clues, they heard Emma beginning to list off theories. Right down to business, eh? Not for the first time, Indeela was impressed by the ability these undeveloped locals were demonstrating to deal with events that must have seemed like magic and nonsense from their perspective. It was always the belief of the Galactic Federation that primitive species' must be very carefully overseen and developed with a guiding hand so as to avoid panic and superstitious mistrust. Perhaps they simply needed to believe a little more in the ability of all sentient life to adapt.

"If it is a prank or a light show Miss Morgan I have found absolutely no sign of a device capable of pulling it off. As for species' with red glowing eyes... The Ice Warriors immediately jump to mind. However they are hardly known for... swooping by at speed... Come on you... Inconvenient... Aha!"

Indeela stood up triumphantly, pulling out the odd looking device that they had found trapped within the bush. On closer inspection, however, it appeared to be nothing but an oddly shaped root.

"Fiddlesticks."

With a sigh, Indeela walked back to the group, still glancing around nervously.

"Well, I can't find anything, and any discussion as to what this fellow could be isn't going to catch us our mysterious red-eyed stranger. Perhaps we should continue our search in the direction they ran off. Over that way, by the way."

Indeela casually pointed to their right while looking down at their feet. They were still getting used to the shimmer's illusion and having two legs was just... odd.

Eric followed The Doctor, continuously looking down at his tiny feet as he went. As the four of them probed deeper into the dark forest Eric looked around at the gnarled, ancient trees and the path they walked on; slippery and uneven with the remains of fallen leaves smashed to pulp by both the elements and local wildlife. Suddenly a blindingly red light whipped past them and disappeared deep into the forest. He idly listened to Emma rattle of stupefyingly mundane suggestions as to what the eyes were. "Laser beams? Nah. Daleks? If they were we'd already be dead by now, as would everyone else in this area.

Cyclopes and Goblins? Goblins don't really exist and Cyclopes never leave Planet Rhoos." he replied to Emma's likely rhetorical suggestions. Eric turned his head as he heard Indeela suddenly chime in with a comment on the Native Martians. Of course she had decided to use that silly nickname everyone had for them "Ice Warriors" he never could understand why everyone...including the Martians themselves, allowed this childish name to be used when referring to them. "Anyway....looks like we found our bloodshot friend, the speed on it....not many things I've seen that can move that fast...and unless there's a possessed, invisible Ood in these woods I can't think of much else that fits that criteria."

Eric attempted a bio-scan with his manipulator, all the usual stuff, birds, foxes, rabbits, a couple hundred ants; but no unusual stuff, nothing that could spirit a child away in the night and certainly nothing with glowing red eyes. "Like it wasn't even there..." he muttered to himself at the sight of the inconclusive scan results. "Well Doctor? Any ideas? 'Cause you've been unnervingly quiet and I get the distinct feeling you go all quiet and mysterious when you're thinking...mostly because you seem to be doing it right now."

The Doctor quickly tried to calm his nerves, his eyes wide and hearts beating faster with every second as he peered around the dark and cold forest. Hearing the voices of Emma, Indeela and finally, Eric snapped him out of his gaze. "Huh?" He unconsciously mumbled as he turned around to Eric, "No...no, sorry. If it was anything like that then i...i would have noticed before. This is something...something i haven't seen in a very long time". Checking the device on his wrist just to keep his mind on it's toes, The Doctor looked around until he spotted Emma and Indeela, "You two alright? Stick close, don't want anything grabbing you two" he called out to them.

Turning back to the direction he was facing before, The Doctor exhaled and inhaled deeply then proceeded deeper into the forest. Then that's when it came to him. At first it was a grunt; a vicious grunt that echoed into the ears of all around it. The Doctor jumped to the left, holding out his sonic screwdriver as if it was going to defend him from whatever made that noise. From the darkness, a pair of red eyes blinked slowly open in front of The Doctor; its entire body stepping out from a hollowed tree. A trick they use to grab children no doubt The Doctor thought as the figure loomed over him, horns protruding out from the top of its head, a tail flailing down by its legs, it's eyes burning like the sun.

Run...Run.....Run!!!! Everything in The Doctors body was screaming, pleading with him to run away with the others, to flee from danger. But he was frozen in petrified fear. The beasts hand slowly extended out towards The Doctor, aiming down towards his chest until one word escaped The Doctors lips, "Mephis.." he whispered. The beast bad tracked and paused for a moment, gazing at the group before closing its eyes and becoming lost to the dark. The Doctor slowly recovered from the ordeal and began to move, firstly looking back to the others to make sure they were there and saw what he did.

The Flesh Doctor looked more closely at the screen not wanting to miss what was going on this time. The other Doctor started talking about what had just happened, he said it was something that hadn't seen in a long time. The Flesh Doctor to tried to scour his memories quickly to see if he could remember but he came up with nothing.

He watched the screen again as the other Doctor stopped and stared at the red blob on the screen came from the tree in front of him, he watched as the creature started to move to grab at the Doctor before The Flesh Doctor heard a small whisper of Mephis from the other Doctor. Suddenly the red blob was gone.

The Flesh Doctor started to hit buttons on the console "Analyze the sensor data on that thing..I need to know what we are dealing with..put in the word Mephis as well," he said talking aloud as he did what he was saying.

Eric turned his head slightly to see Emma. "Sorry, ignore my thinking out loud.....just going through my list....like a....well I guess you could call it a Mind Palace...thingy." he explained, not really explaining anything. He heard The Doctor whisper something too quiet for even him to hear. Moments later he began to hear a deep, guttural growling echo throughout the forest...though it seemed to be coming from right next to him. He turned back to The Doctor, who seemed petrified, frozen in equal parts disbelief and fear at the monstrosity that towered before him, red eyes fiercely glowing in the dark forest like demonic lanterns.

Eric felt his own heart beating rapidly in his chest, feeling like a fleshy xylophone pounding against his ribcage. He squinted and could make out slightly less of the creature than The Doctor could, but still more than Emma, he remembered the old history teachings when he was a kid, the thing about humanity from his home time having much improved eyesight and life-span to their 21st century ancestors. Disregarding this currently irrelevant fact he found he had instinctively drawn his Alpha-Meson Blaster from it's holster and was aiming it at the spot the unknown creature had previously occupied. He activated the blaster's safety, but not wanting to take any chances decided to keep it on hand. Eric saw The Doctor look inquiringly from him to Emma to Indeela and back again. "Did...anyone else....see...that...that giant hellbeast..?" Eric inquired, breathing heavily and slowly to lower his heart-rate.

The Doctor tried to calm himself down by looking around and scrutinizing each of his friends, "Everyone alright and counted for? Emma? Indeela? Eric?" he asked, making sure they were alright before turning his attention back to where the creature had run off to.

Flipping his sonic screwdriver to a different setting, The Doctor scanned the ground and area where he had seen it until a match came up and locked onto the bio-metrical signal, "Gotcha! I've got a reading..faint but it's still there...". Looking back to his friends once more, The Doctor released a light sigh, "At least i know what we are dealing with now..." he told them before peering back in front of him and arching an eyebrow, "Now we have to be careful more than ever...and find those children as quickly as possible...".

The Doctor stared at screen as nothing came up but he hard that the other Doctor got see the results. He frowned slightly wondering if the TARDIS knew that he was not the real Doctor so it wouldn't take his commands. He looked over at the screen and saw that everyone was still there especially Emma, when he found that out he smiled slightly.

"You know I am basically the Doctor," he said talking to the TARDIS leaning slightly on the console shaking his head slightly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the TVM he was working on before looking at it. The Flesh Doctor pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver and started waving it over the TVM so that he could finish since he had nothing better to do except watch the group on the screen.

((Waiting on others))

Eric hated sitting here waiting for others to find answers, he busied himself and tried inverting bio-data search parameters on his Manipulator to find whatever the mysterious red eyed being was, large red writing played across the Manipulator's screen 'SEARCH RESULTS INCONCLUSIVE, INSUFFICIENT BIO-DATA' "Damnit" he said, he closed all active functions and put the Manipulator on power conservation settings. He leant against a nearby tree, looking to The Doctor, who was searching for something on the ground. "Doctor, if you know what that thing was you need to tell us, in case that thing comes back or we get split up for whatever reason we need to know what we're dealing with." he said, his tone of voice pleading with The Doctor to give him an answer.

Eric waited, The Doctor was clearly engaged in whatever he was doing right now, he absent-mindedly inspected his Blaster again, the jet black finish making it seem as if he held a gleaming black mass of obsidian. He went through standard procedure, check for damage or indentation, eject weapons pack for inspection, discard or re-insert weapons pack depending on inspection results; and finally check safety and trigger responsiveness. He holstered it after completing this procedure three consecutive times in a row, seemingly satisfied with the results.

The Doctor rubbed the back of his head, hearing all the questions posed to him by his pleading friends, all searching for answers to what they had just seen. Turning back to them, The Doctor aimed to grab each of their attentions. "Alright..listen up because i am only telling you this once...you'l know why after i have told you" The Doctor began, looking down to his shimmer to make sure that his other incarnation was listening on the other side before beginning, "They're called Mephistophes. They've been around since the dawn of the universe...some say before....they are soul eaters. But humans more commonly call them demons..religions across time and space call them demons or some form of them. Sent out by a higher power to devour corrupted souls from across the universe...but a few thousand years ago a collection of advanced civilizations waged war against them..but couldn't kill them all. The remaining Mephisophes were spread out across the universe..some banished to Earth for their performances in the war".

"That is why we need to find these kids as fast as we can" The Doctor concluded, "If these are banished Mephis' then that means they are no longer under command of their leader, forbidding them of demonic like activities.".